Welcome to Dominik's Diploma portfolio at Beyondbuckthorns.com. Dominik is a diploma holder since October / November 2021. His tutor was Cathrine Dolleris.

On this site you can read through all of Dominik's 10 designs. The content below is in chronological order. The latest content is at the top. 

Credits go to Lumia Huhdanpää-Jais (my wife), Dan McTiernan, Wilf Richards, Tomas Remiarz, Erkki Pöytäniemi, Mihaela TzarchinskaAndreas Jonsson and Moritz Holzinger.

Nick's diploma presentation is at Youtube

The slides are at https://diploma.beyondbuckthorns.com

Eutopia borealis - aerial image

Eutopia borealis

When Lumia and I moved to Finland in 2016 we started observing right away. We discovered micro climates, areas where edible fungi grew, natural trees nurseries, etc. We also noticed one particular area. An area that somehow seemed out of context… more

PermaPuheet

PermaPuheet

The PermaPuheet is a design for a series of lectures for the Finnish Permaculture Association. It was well received by many members and helped to more than double the number of members within 3 month.

Water - element of live

Catching the rain

At Beyond Buckthorns we have our own well. It is 12 – 13 meters deep and is connected to a pump that starts when there is demand. Well water is our drinking and washing water. In 2017 we got hit by 2 droughts. Both together made it necessary to… more

Ice on a window

Communications at the Finnish Permaculture Association

The idea for this design started in 2017 during a meeting of the Finnish Permaculture Association. When I became chairman of the board in 2019 I was in a unique position. The association was in transition towards sociocratic circular method. The… more

Biogas workshop at Beyond Buckthorns

Templating a workshop

Designing a biogas workshop that can be delivered over and over again. Creating a workshop blueprint.

first designCamp at Beyond Buckthorns - participants

Permablitz designCamp

In early 2020 we bought the neighbors 0,5ha pine forest / recreational spot that was years back sold to them by Lumia's, my wife’s parents. The neighbors wanted to sell and for us it was a good opportunity to buy. Lumia then started the process… more

Introducing the PermaCafé at the associations meeting

Welcome to the PermaCafe

Over the past years the Finnish permaculture association used all kinds of different tools and processes to get members involved. The following design used permaculture ethics and principles to introduce a new social design tool called PermaCafé… more

Permaculture tomato house

Ritvas Permaculture Garden

Designing a permaculture garden for a friend of mine in Finland was fun. I appreciated been given that opportunity. Read about the entire Permaculture design process using Looby's design web.

Introducing the Jean-Luc - the biogas digester at Beyond Buckthorns

Introducing the Jean-Luc

Since I got dropped into biogas, working with Prof. TH Culhane on different biogas projects, I always wanted to have a biogas system on my own. When I came to Finland I finally got the space to build a biogas digester and then actually experiment… more

The problem of mono-culture software choices in Permaculture

A permaculture view on alternatives for Wordpress, Google, Apple and Facebook and co.

Envision a world where all communication and data is in the hand of the people instead of some cooperation, where we have open APIs and standards to exchange information and knowledge. This is a design for it.

A shed at Beyond Buckthorns

The Biogas Shed

It is 2017 and my parents were on holidays at Beyond Buckthorns and they told me during a walk that something needs to be done with one of the sheds, especially with the color of the walls, which was already coming off. A confession: the color of… more

Permaculture Stencil Template

Permaculture Pocket Stencil Template

During a rainy day I went looking for nitrogen fixing shrubs and ended up watching a Geoff Lawton video where he interviewed someone who showed their design process. During that video I noticed that the designer was using a stencil template.… more

hammock at Beyondbuckthorns

Obr3dim

Yes, there are processes and there are good processes. Necessarily both are not the same. There are also those that cry for adaption and alteration. And one of those processes is Obredim.

Nuts at Beyondbuckthorns

Continuous integration Part 2

Since I wrote about "Continuous Integration" some time has gone by. Good to have you here again. I have evaluated the design before implementation, ran a reiteration twice and then started implementing.

continuous integration as part of how a permaculture diploma is disseminated

Continuous integration

The used process for this design is Obr3dim, an Obredim variant. Use the jump menu to dive into the different steps. 

Lumia holding a wand

The wand chooses the wizzard - How to find a Diploma tutor

Before my PDC at Elontila it was already clear that I would start the process of getting a Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design (DAPD).